Sales Development Rep Pilot Metrics from Sales 2.0

After seeing it mentioned on another blog I picked up the book Sales 2.0: Improve Business Results Using Innovative Sales Practices and Technology by Anneke Seley and Brent Holloway. The authors do a good job making the case for sales development reps, telesales, and using the web as part of the selling process. For those versed with the modern B2B SaaS customer acquisition model of the past five years it won’t be much new information but those transitioning from a traditional enterprise sale to a hybrid model or more telesales, this is a strong primer.

One question I see frequently is around metrics for sales development reps. Here are example sales development rep (SDR) metrics from the book for a 12 week pilot period (pg 173):

• Number of outbound calls and e-mails per day/week/pilot period including ramp: 45/135/1521
• Contacts (connects, returned calls and returned e-mails) per day/week/month at 12 percent rate: 5/15/183
• Percent of contacts in A lead category: 4 percent
• Number of contacts per pilot period in A lead category: 7
• Percent of contacts in B category: 6 percent
• Number of contacts per pilot period in B lead category: 11
• Average deal size: $80,000
• Pipeline value per month (A & B leads): $1.44 million

So, a trained sales development rep spends three months prospecting, connects with five people per day, and generates seven hot leads and 11 warm leads. These numbers are inline with what I’ve heard from other entrepreneurs and show that SDRs work if the economics of the deal make sense.

What else? What are your thoughts on these metrics with sales development reps?